Many razor heads are formed of separate pieces, including a seat with a guard bar, one or two blades separated by a spacer, and a cap. These elements are often formed separately and are then assembled during manufacturing. While some shaving systems are engineered to permit relative movement of these elements during shaving, it is desirable to control the direction and range of movement in the manufactured product.
In a typical two-blade rigid shaving system, a blade package having two blades separated by a spacer is sandwiched between the cap and the seat. The package is typically held together by pins which depend downwardly from the cap, pass through holes in the blades and spacer, and are snap fit or mechanically staked into complementary receptive holes in the seat. Such systems are ideally designed to prevent relative movement of the blades with respect to the guard bar and cap. Tolerances built into such systems to accommodate manufacturing limitations result in these elements being formed with imperfections lying within tolerable ranges. Though these tolerances can be relatively small, such as a few ten thousandths of an inch, they can nonetheless result in undesirable movement between the blades and the other elements of the razor head. Particularly, cutting forces encountered during shaving are known to cause deflections of a seat blade causing the sharpened edge of the seat blade to move upwardly and away from the guard bar during shaving. Such deflections cause inconsistent blade geometries and can result in an uncomfortable shave and may produce less than optimum shave results.
The disadvantages which accompany undesired blade deflections are not limited to rigid shaving systems. For example, the Schick.RTM. Division of the Warner Lambert Company has developed a flexible system designed to follow the contours of a curved surface, which is marketed under the name TRACER.TM.. While the entire blade package is designed to flex, and the blades are permitted to move laterally relative to the seat when the razor head is flexed, lateral relative movement between the blades and the guard bar are still undesirable.
It would, therefore, be desirable to provide a razor head wherein manufacturing imperfections resulting in blade deflections during shaving would be reduced and/or eliminated. Blade deflections could be reduced by providing a razor head wherein the spaces left between adjoining elements due to manufacturing tolerances and imperfections would be substantially eliminated.